Akatsuki
by twosmall
Summary: Some kids want to settle down with a family when they grow up. We were orphans, but we dreamed much bigger than that. We wanted to take over our country.
1. Chapter 1

The buildings around me were so big that I couldn't see the tops of them without craning my head all the way up. I didn't do that though. The sky was crying and I didn't want to get its tears in my eyes. The sky was always crying here, because people were always dying in the Land of Rain and so the entire region was as sad as the people in it.

That was why I wasn't ashamed of the tears, hidden by the rain, that decorated my own cheeks. If the sky was allowed to cry, surely a ten year old girl like myself had the same right.

My clothing had it worse than my cheeks. The worn down brown cloth shirt and ragged dirt stained brown pants had been exposed to the rain for far too long. They weren't just wet. They were the sort of soaked that added weight - if I were to wring them out sheets of water would fall off them. I looked like someone had dunked me in the river, twice.

The rich looking man, with his purple silk shirt doing little to conceal the small bulge at his belly that proved he wasn't starving, could see the difference in the two of us. He looked at me. Then he looked at the bread in his hand. Then he looked at me again.

A ten year old girl. Pitiable with such exotic blue hair. Another tragic war orphan. "Please," I begged, laying it on thick. "I'm hungry."

My friend and fellow war orphan, the orange haired Yahiko, brushed past our mark, making off with a coin purse. The rich man didn't notice. Instead he grimaced and then handed me the bread and I felt like someone had stabbed me in the gut. Guilt. It wasn't like the real knives that had killed my mother and father. It still hurt though.

I thanked the man and started to eat his bread anyway. I walked away as I ate. It was one of those really big loaves. The sort of thing that was used to feed families for a week that people would get knives out and cut up into slices. Freshly baked too. It was delicious; my first bite of food all day.

Yum.

It was best to be as far away as possible. Eventually the man would notice that Yahiko had stolen his purse. Then he would make a scene and he might even connect me to crime. So I left.

I'd made it three streets when I saw a boy lying on the road. His hair was dark red, every bit as exotic as my own blue hair. He looked like he was on the edge of death. I could see the outline of his ribs, even though he was wearing a shirt, because the black shirt he was wearing was so wet that it was gluing itself to him.

I walked up to him. He looked at me with strange purple eyes filled with circles that got smaller and smaller. Yeah. He was definitely dying. Eyes weren't supposed to look like that. He was sick. "Hungry," he whispered.

I narrowed my eyes. Glanced around. Pulled my bread closer to my chest. He didn't have a partner though. There was no one nearby. Nobody was coming to steal my bread.

I was going to walk away. I knew that was the right thing to do. Yahiko would be angry with me if I did anything else. But the not-stabbing was back. Why did I feel guilty? He was the idiot that didn't know how to feed himself.

It didn't go away though. I didn't walk away either.

I was being stupid.

I glanced at the bread in my hand. My frown deepened. It was my bread now. I didn't want to give it to him. But… maybe… I broke it in half.

I handed my fellow starving orphan the smallest piece. "My name's Konan," I said. "Whats yours?"

"Nagato."


	2. Chapter 2

A home isn't just a place to live. It's a place where a person is safe and warm and among their precious people. When my parents had been alive, I'd had a home.

I didn't have a home anymore though. I had a cave.

It was dark and damp. I didn't feel safe. If someone came by and found the cave, they would be able to steal everything I had.

That had happened before. More then once.

I had a friend though. A friend who was angry with me.

"You brought someone here! What were you thinking." Yahiko held up his hand motioning for me to stop even though I hand't said anything yet. "I don't really want you to answer that."

I answered anyway. "Yahiko, he didn't have anywhere to go."

"I can leave," Nagato said. His voice was so soft that the pattering of the rain outside the dimly lit cave nearly drowned it out.

"Its too late," Yahiko said. He shook his head. "You already know too much. We'll have to move again Konan. We can't keep doing this. How are we going to become ninja if we keep getting distracted by things like this!"

I had no idea how to become a ninja, but I desperately wanted to be one. Ninja were strong. Fast. Smart. Powerful. No one could call a ninja a mangy runt and get away with it. They got to eat as much as they wanted. No one could boss them around either and they could do anything - probably even fly or resurrect my parents or kill the people who killed my parents or kill anyone who ever tried to touch another kid's parent. And I wanted to be able to do those things. I wanted to be a _kunochi_ and not a _war orphan_.

"I'm sorry," I said, meaning it. I hadn't realized that sharing the bread and bringing Nagato to our cave would interfere with my ninja training. I didn't know a lot about ninja training. Neither did Yahiko. It was one of our problems.

"I won't take anything," Nagato said.

He was trying to reassure us that he wasn't a thief. That even though he knew where we lived now and where we kept all of our precious possessions, he could be trusted with that secret knowledge.

"Idiot. You've got to take stuff. You're a war orphan. That's how you survive!" Yahiko told him. "You gotta double cross us when we leave then take our stuff, that way you have something. Don't you know anything?"

Nagato shook his head. No. He was a pitiable war orphan too. It was to be expected that he not know anything.

Yahiko bit his lip. He did that sometimes when he was thinking about really important things. Like how to learn to become a ninja so we could fight off the people who had invaded our lands.

Then he nodded. "I know what to do. I'll teach you how to survive on the streets."

I nodded too. Of course Yahiko would know what to do. He was that sort of person. He always knew what to do. He was a natural leader. It was to be expected that he would come up with a plan.

Generous too. I had only planned to let Nagato stay the night. Getting out of the rain and cold was really important. I hand't anticipated him staying longer than that.


	3. Chapter 3

That night was ninja practice. When we were high on supplies, food and clothing and blankets to stay warm at night, that was the really important thing we had to do. That way one day we wouldn't have to plan heists and beg and get pitied, because we'd be really strong ninja.

I was the best at ninja practice. Much better than both boys. I could make parts of my skin fall off. It became lousy paper, which I had no use for, but it was something.

Nagato didn't understand the importance of trying to hold paper to our skin, though he was suitably impressed that I could create the paper.

Eventually though watching me make paper and being asked to sit still and try to do stuff with chakra got to Nagato. He lost faith in Yahiko-sensei.

"I thought ninja fought," Nagato said. I was starting to get used to the way his voice was always so soft. It was getting easier to hear him over the sound of the rain outside the cave. "Shouldn't we be practicing fighting."

Yahiko glared at him. "No. That is our number one rule. No fighting. If we fight and get hurt, we don't have anyone here but ourselves. We won't be able to go to a doctor and we won't be able to go out and get food. We'll die if we get hurt badly enough."

"Oh," Nagato said. He looked down at the ground. "Okay."

I continued my practice.

I didn't just make the paper stick to me. I made it move around. I was _much_ better than the boys at ninja practice.

All Yahiko and Nagato managed to do was get the paper to stick to their forehead and even then it would fall off after a while or if anything distracted him.

I was surprised to find that despite not having had nightly ninja practice, Nagato was just as able as Yahiko. It had taken Nagato months to get to the point where he could do the paper sticking exercise and he still hadn't mastered it. Nagato had managed it after only a few tries.

Clearly Yahiko was an excellent sensei. I added to my growing list of his virtues.

"Good job!" Yahiko told Nagato, staring at the paper on his forehead. "You're really good at this."

Nagato smiled. It was the first time I'd seen him smile yet. It lit up his face and I decided that I liked it when he smiled. "Thanks. I have a question though. Once we master this, what do we do next."

"When we master this I don't know what we do next. So we gotta figure out what to do next. We'll need to get a sensei, but we can't get one from around here. That is doing things the same way the other orphans do and the other nations will still beat up on Ame. Nothing will change." Yahiko's voice was filled with conviction.

Nagato looked uncertain. "But if we can't learn from Ame ninja, who do we learn from?"

"Great ninja from another village," Yahiko said. "I don't know who yet. We'll need to leverage our status as war orphans. Gotta make them pity us so they'll agree to give us some training. Probably that will give us a few words. Then we just keep doing that until we become strong. How do you think I found out about the paper sticking? I asked a Leaf nin."

"You've talked to a leaf nin?" Nagato's soft voice had a quality to it that I recognized. Fear.

Yahiko puffed out his chest. "Of course. One day I'm going to be Amekage and no one will be allowed to hurt anyone in Ame again. I can't be afraid to talk to a Leaf nin."

Nagato stared at Yahiko. Then he nodded. He didn't laugh like some of the adults did when Nagato said things like that.

None of the war orphans did that once Yahiko had started sharing the secret of chakra. He was going to teach us to be ninja. Then we would help him become Kage. Nagato didn't just dream. He had plans.

I used my chakra to fold a paper crane while Yahiko put a piece of paper on his head again. This time he lasted a few seconds longer than the previous time.


	4. Chapter 4

Light reflected off a puddle that had formed out of the mouth of the cave. The puddle water was clear and still, the rain had stopped, probably only for a brief time, ending the ripples caused by constant splashing.

I stomped on it as I walked by, grinning and making a big splash as I left the cave with my friends. Today was the start of something special and even the sky knew it. No tears today.

All of us had backpacks filled with food and our few precious possessions. We weren't planning on returning to the cave, so even our blankets were being brought with us.

I glanced to my right at the two boys, my only friends in this dreary world. Nagato looked so much healthier than when we had met him a year ago. Food had been tough to get, but not so tough that I could still see his ribs. He didn't have the muscle that Yahiko had, but he also hadn't made a point of working to have that muscle. Yahiko ate more and exercised. He was driven.

Nagato and I both agreed that it was because of Yahiko that we had graduated from _war orphans_ to _ninja children_. That growth had done a lot for us. It had made us faster, stronger, and smarter. It had made it easier for us to sneak away with food and supplies from the citizens of Ame - Yahiko talked about them using words like that, citizen, subject. Fancy words that only a kid like him had business using.

Our growth meant something though. No longer could we rely upon the knowledge that Yahiko had acquired. We had each mastered the art of paper sticking and had even progressed to the art of moving our chakra around in our body to enhance it. Yet that was the limit of what Yahiko had learned.

Today was an important day, because it was the day we set out on our quest. A quest to acquire a ninja teacher so we could continue our journey away from being helpless war orphans and become shinobi and kunochi nation conquerers.

"So which way do we go?" Nagato asked.

Yahiko seemed unusually nervous. "We gotta do something really stupid. Gotta go somewhere really stupid. Are you sure two want to come with? I can go alone and bring the ninja back here to teach us."

"We talked about this Yahiko. We're coming with. We want to be brave ninja too," Nagato said.

"Okay." Yahiko said. He didn't sound like he was actually happy with it though. "You remember how the people in town were talking about the ninja fighting to the north? We gotta go there. We gotta to go to where they are fighting and then find ninja. Don't worry though. I gotta plan to get in their good graces. They won't just kill us if we do it right."

"Whats the plan?" I asked. It was important that everyone knew plans before hand that way everyone could work together. Teamwork was critical for helpless war orphans like us.

"We need to find a big battle. One where ninja get hurt. Then we gotta go help one of the hurt ninja, the survivors. That way they are so grateful for our help they'll want to help us become ninja."

It sounded like a good plan to me. Much better than what I was thinking. I thought we were going to walk up to some ninja and then ask them to teach us.

I did see one problem with it. "Don't ninja have healing powers too? Why wouldn't they just heal all the places they got hurt?"

Yahiko shook his head. "They have healers, but only some of them can do it and they're really important. They stay away from the fighting, because they are so important. So if we find some ninja who are really hurt, we don't gotta worry about them getting better really fast, cause they gotta go all the way to the healers before they can get better."

I nodded. That made sense too. "We should make sure to offer them food right away," Nagato said. "I think that's really important. I liked Konan a lot more once she shared food with me."

"What type of food do you think ninja like?" I asked. We didn't have much of it and I wasn't sure bread was what ninja ate.

"Crackers," Yahiko said, back to his usual confident self. "Everyone likes crackers."

I nodded at Yahiko's wisdom. I liked crackers and so did Nagato. They were crunchy and if you didn't want to eat them crunchy you could make them mushy by putting them in water. They were a very adaptable food.


End file.
